Vogue Italia's oil-spill fashion shoot: slick or crude?

The August edition of Vogue Italia has 24 pages dedicated to a shoot featuring Kristen McMenamy, but it's not her silver hair that's causing controversy. The photographs, by Steven Meisel, draw inspiration from the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill: McMenamy drifts, Ophelia-like, in a slick, is washed up on a beach or chokes against rocks, and wears black dresses adorned with feathers and netting. Blogs have questioned the editorial decision; the aptly named fashion site Refinery 29 feels uneasy at the glamorisation of the disaster. But the magazine's features director Carlo Ducci responds: "We can't be silent in this kind of situation and why shouldn't our interpretation be artistic?"